That has long felt to me to be just what this song is about. And I heard it first in the middle of a deeply horrific, hopeless internal time of life for me; we'll call it life. And I've never forgotten the awful agony I felt hearing this song. It could be just a personal mis-interpretation. But I suspect not. This song is something deep, about things expresable only in poetic terms, not descriptive ones. Our language doesn't have very good words for the depths of Jamie. But a song or a poem can have a way to express it. The writer/composer who finds a way to do this is a master, a remarkable person, and must have some deep understandings to be able to do such a work. I have thought for some time that if I ever had a moment with Peter Yarrow, this is what I would ask him about, this song. It's an amazing song. I actually haven't been able to bring myself to listen to it again since then (early-mid 1970's). So powerful. But I've never forgotten the song, or the personal experience it was, from hearing it just the one time. It was a thunderbolt.